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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28331088">First Christmas in the Dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dotdotbeepdot/pseuds/Dotdotbeepdot'>Dotdotbeepdot</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sides Prequel Stories [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Drama, First Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Kid Sides (Sanders Sides), No Unsympathetic Sides, Post-Creativity Split (Sanders Sides), Pre-Canon, im a patton and janus apologist, mostly angst i’m sorry, patton might seem bad but he’s not he was just a kid and so was janus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:15:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,172</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28331088</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dotdotbeepdot/pseuds/Dotdotbeepdot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been six months since the Split as they have started to call it. Janus, Remus, and Virgil (known only as Anxiety here) celebrate their first Christmas together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>None</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sides Prequel Stories [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>First Christmas in the Dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I’m starting to make a storyline for the sides too now lmao. Only difference from the egos is that is is basically a bunch of prequel stories and leads up to the canon. </p><p>Anyways, here is how their first Christmas together went :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus gasped as a heavy weight crashed down on his back, knees digging into the base of his spine. He wondered for a brief moment if the screaming in his ears was his own, but decided that the screaming sounded more excited than in pure agony for it to be him.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s <em>Christmas!”</em> The screaming said, loud enough for even Thomas to hear. “Jannie! Jannie! Wake <em>up,</em> I want to see what Santa brought!” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus fought down the pain in his chest, blaming it on Remus still pinning him to his bed. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Right... Christmas.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Well, you’ll have to get off me first and wake Fear.” Janus needed to wake up and get those gifts ready. Thankfully, in the six months of being held in the basement of Thomas’ mind, Janus has gotten back his strength from creating rooms out of nothing and becoming a stand-in father for Remus and Fear even though he couldn’t do what came so <em>easily </em>to Morality and Logic—</span>
</p><p class="p1"><span class="s1">“It’s Anxiety now, remember!” Remus didn’t wait for a response, however, already running out the bedroom door to his friend, ready to play their daily game of hide and seek—which was just</span> <span class="s1"> searching the whole place to find what strange place Anxiety had fallen asleep this time.</span></p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Anxiety, right.” Janus took a deep breath as Remus hopped off of him. He needed to calm down. All this stressing will only drain him further. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Pushing himself off the bed with a groan, he stared down at his hand. Bumps of shiny green scales were ripping through the skin of his hand, from the knuckles and disappearing under the blanket, where it continued up his arm and spread to his chest. He could already feel the thin skin that he had shed off of his chest peel under his shirt as he shifted. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Stressing did a lot more than drain his energy nowadays.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus couldn’t focus on that quite yet. He focused on getting dressed. Black turtleneck and matching gloves, hiding the ugly scales from view. The others didn’t know about them yet and Janus was admen on them never knowing. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He needed to head to the main room and summon some gifts for the two. Christmas has been a good pick-me-up for Remus. He’s had a hard year with the Split and Roman leaving the basement, and thankfully, the jolly mood of Christmas was doing wonders on keeping him happy. It’s been much too long since the last time Remus was just childish butt jokes and not jokes about sneaking upstairs and wrapping a wire around Morality’s neck until his head popped right off.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">This was also Anxiety’s first Christmas morning with someone. Before, Janus was the only one that would celebrate with him, and he was only able to sneak away from the others at night. It was still debatable if he liked having Janus and Remus around him constantly now, but at least he wasn’t running away from them and flinching at everything. Janus thinks he likes having people around him for once, he just spent so many years alone that he gets overwhelmed easily. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus smiled at Remus’ shout of victory as he found Anxiety’s sleeping spot and the other’s screams at being woken up. He stood up from where he had planted their presents under their skinny dead tree— Janus would have summoned a nice nice one that rivaled the Core sides’ but Remus <em>really</em> wanted a dead one because he thought it was cooler— and smiled as Remus came running in, holding Anxiety’s ankles on his shoulders and hanging him upside down on his back as the other kid continued to scream and shriek to be put down.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Remus, be nice,” Janus cooed, finding the scene endearing. They were sweet together. Not to each other, of course, but as friends that teased each other non-stop. “Put him down and come help me hand out presents.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Okay!” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Remus dropped Anxiety to the ground and Janus brought up his hand to stifle his smile at his pained exclamation as his head hit the ground. Janus and Remus traded places, him picking Anxiety up from the ground to sit him on the couch next to him and the other haphazardly piling as much gifts as he could hold in his skinny little arms and dumping them on the floor in front of them.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Easy, now,” Janus bent down to grab each labeled for Anxiety and handed them to him. “Don’t break any of them, please.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“They’re better broken!” Remus claimed, bring the rest over and dropping down in front of them all on the floor, quickly making a separate pile of his own gifts and tossing any other gifts for Anxiety to him. “Youngest first!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Anxiety huffed and stopped picking at the pretty red wrapped box in his lap. Janus smiled reassuringly and rubbed his knee as Remus ripped into his first gift— a mouse trap game, no doubt he’ll corrupt it into a real mouse trap.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus watched Remus and Anxiety rip into their gifts happily, making sounds of excitement and eagerly thanking Santa for each gift given. The Santa lie always angered Janus in the past few years, but Morality always turned him down when he would try to tell Thomas. Not only did he never believe him, he said that it was cruel to ruin Thomas’ Christmas spirit by telling him that the fat man that broke into their house to give them gifts labeled with their mother’s same hand writing wasn’t actually real. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He used to think it was stupid that everyone were so okay with letting Thomas believe such a lie, but seeing Remus and Anxiety so happy that Santa visited them— especially after Remus worried himself ill that he was too “bad” to get a visit from Santa this year and Anxiety thinking he was never good enough for Santa to visit him. He couldn’t possibly tell them the truth.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">One lie was okay for now.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was well into noon, Anxiety having run off to doodle and write in the journal “Santa” got him, when Janus noticed that Remus wasn’t acting his normal, chaotic self. The creative side was sitting in his pile of toys and weapons with a pensive look on his face, corners of his mouth fighting both a frown and a scowl. Janus frowned himself and kneeled down in front of him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Remus,” he said, tilting his head down so to look into his red eyes. Remus wouldn’t meet his brown ones. “Is something wrong, my little creature?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Remus just shrugged. The fight for which emotion was allowed to shine on his face had a winner when his eyebrows scrunched together and lead the scowl to victory. He wrapped his arms around his middle and glared at his knees, as if they were the reason why he was so upset. Janus tried again to rid that expression.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Do you want to show me how to play with your knives?” Janus picked up his favorite, a glossy wooden handle and jagged steel dagger. He twirled it between his fingers, pretending to stumble and drop it. “You can teach me some knife tricks? Like with you’re butterfly knife?”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No,” Remus pushed the dagger away with a childish pout. “I don’t want to play.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then what’s wrong, dear?” Janus sighed, putting the dagger back in it’s case with the others and transferred the toys surrounding them to Remus’ room with a wave of his hand. “I only want to help.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Santa didn’t get me what I asked for.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus pursed his lips, confused. “And what was that?” Remus looked up at him and Janus felt his instincts spark in his stomach, something foreboding settling and making its home next to it.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I wanted Roman to come back.”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The silence dragged between them after the confession. Janus leaned away from him and swallowed at the lump in his throat. Roman hasn’t been brought up in awhile, even when Remus has his episodes, they actively avoided saying his name.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh,” Janus felt the words slip out of his mouth, almost silently. He swallowed again. “Remus—“</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I want him back, Janus,” he interrupts, voice thick with emotion. He didn’t seem to care when it cracked, only looking angrier. “Why did you get rid of him? He was my brother! He needed me, he needed me to watch over him, you remember? He was so scared of everything! Everything I said scared him!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That’s why he had to leave, Remus,” Janus shut his eyes, trying to keep his breathing under control. He couldn’t get stressed out, he had to push it down, push it away. “It wasn’t healthy for Roman to be down here. He wasn’t like us. What Morality did—“</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“He was hurt!” Remus shouted, shoving himself off the ground and standing over Janus. “Morality had hurt both of us and he was hurting and you put him back there! They could be hurting him right now!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Morality would never hurt Roman or <em>any of us</em> on purpose,” Janus opened his eyes again to glare at the younger side. “He really does regret what he did to you and Roman, and he treats him—“</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then where are we now!” Remus threw his up, stomping his foot and trembling with rage. “I’ll tell you where we are not, and that is up there! Warm and happy and not stuck in this hole in the ground of Thomas’ nightmares!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I tried to make this a home for you!” Janus lost his cool. He pushed himself up too and stood eye to eye with Remus. He threw a sweeping arm around the room. “I tried <em>so hard </em>to make all of you happy, but I’m not Morality or Logic! I’m just a kid like you, Remus! I’m trying my <em>best</em> to do what I think is right, but <em>I</em> was thrown out because I wasn’t good enough for them either! I’m hurting too, but I put all that aside to take care of you and Anxiety!”</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I want Roman!” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You can’t have him!” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus <em>screamed,</em> panting like a wild dog after, feeling his hands shake and his face burn hot. He hasn’t felt this angry before, not even when he was telling Morality to bite him. Everything from the past six months have been bubbling up until Remus had started this fight and it just came bursting out. His whole body shook hard and felt ice cold despite how hot his face felt. The haze over his brain was starting to fade and he was all too aware of his own skin. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Janus.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <em>“What?!”  </em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He whipped his head to the right to see Anxiety staring with his usual hooded eyes wide, looking all too big with the dark bags underneath. He was clutching new journal to his chest, hugging it closely. He was scared. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Anxiety shakily pointed at his face without moving his arm away from himself. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus brought up a hand and felt his breath catch in his throat as his gloved fingertips brushed against bumps on his face. He removed his hand and stared down at it, seeing the flecks of paper thin skin on his hand. He brought both hands up to his face in panic. Janus felt the peel of his skin and the smooth scales underneath. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No. No no no no— </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Turning and taking quite a few steps away from both of them, he summoned a hand mirror and stifled the cry with his hand. Green scales were tearing through the left side of his face, skin getting peeled away with his gloves scraping against it. That wasn’t even the most horrifying part to him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">No... what was horrifying was the sickly yellow snake eye that was once brown. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He looked like a <em>monster.  </em></span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Janus?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">And they had seen it. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Don’t,” he hissed— oh God, he <em>hissed—</em> out. His hands were shaking and he pressed the mirror to his chest, unable to look at himself like this. He could feel the scales continuing to crawl up his face. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What happened to your face?” Remus ignored his plea. Janus couldn’t even feel angry lash at him, just hunched forward, crouching on the ground and hanging his head. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He couldn’t cry. He already ruined Christmas with his outburst and hideous face. He couldn’t cry. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Janus...” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Go,” Janus heard his voice crack and that was enough for a sob to break free. He bit his lip, trying in vain to ignore how his teeth felt so much sharper now. <em>“Please.</em> Please... just go.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“But, Janus—“ </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Leave it,” Anxiety stopped Remus. He could hear him turning him around. “It’ll be okay. Janus just needs to be alone for awhile.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Janus held himself together as best as could as there steps started back to they’re rooms. He couldn’t cry. They couldn’t hear him cry. They couldn’t, <em>they couldn’t.</em> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He had to stay strong. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Did I do something wrong?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The tiny, hurt words from Remus was enough to make Janus break.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The reason why Virgil doesn’t have his name yet is because I want him to go through a lot of names before deciding on Virgil. NO this is not an excuse to use all the prediction names from before his name reveal what are you talking about?? No but really I just feel like he would find the naming to be a really big commitment and him being literal anxiety it would be hard to pick one.</p><p>As fore Janus’ getting his snake skin? He’s ignoring his main function as self-care and all the stress and self-loathing is making him look like the monster he feels like. Pretty much if he never learned to take care of himself, he would look like one of the ninjago villains with the snake heads.</p><p>Hope you liked it lmao tell me if you are interested in more or something</p></blockquote></div></div>
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